What if the nastiest chemicals found in your cleaning products, makeup, and even pesticide-laden foods came to life? Well, they do, in this year’s 4th Annual Toxies web series. Not only do the most loathsome chemicals that wreak the most havoc come alive as wacky characters before your eyes, a journalist is there to find out more about them and give you the details! The Toxies: Exposed is a satirical 7-part web series that follows a daring investigative journalist as he chases down toxic chemicals and pollutants, raising awareness about toxins in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities.

Failed chemical policies are leading to unwanted chemicals in our bodies, and every week, studies link chemicals in our environment to rising rates of disease. That’s why the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) is promoting a fun and informative campaign to protect communities from toxic chemicals and pollutants. We are a part of Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy (CHANGE)—a coalition of environmental health, policy, labor, environmental justice, interfaith, and other organizations who are working to create a better system for regulating toxic chemicals in California.

“Bad actor” is a term scientists use to describe these chemicals that have dangerous hazardous traits, meaning that no matter how or where they are used, they are likely to cause trouble. In past years, The Toxies has put a face on “bad actor” chemicals by simulating an awards ceremony for the worst toxic characters. This year, a new web series called The Toxies: Exposed will further this mission. As a popular education and social media-driven educational tool, this web series is helping elevate the conversation around these toxics, mobilizing people to take action in their own lives, workplaces, and calling on representatives to fix our laws so that our health is protected.

Following the viewing, a discussion will be held with scientists, advocates, and community members in order to raise awareness about the real life battle to retire these dangerous chemicals and pollutants. If you live in the Los Angeles area, you’re invited to join us at the screening event on August 15th at the Downtown Independent Theater in Los Angeles. If you can’t attend, you can watch the whole series on the Toxies website.

The petrochemical industry has been fighting tooth and nail against any kind of progress on local, state and federal levels towards restricting dangerous chemicals. In Congress, they are pushing a deeply flawed bill called the Chemical Safety Improvement Act (CSIA), which many leading environmental advocacy organizations believe will constitute business as usual, and are pushing hard to fix it. If passed, the CSIA would fail to protect those communities hit hardest by toxic chemical emissions, pre-empt health protective state policies, and fail to immediately ban chemicals known to have harmful effects on human health.

]]>http://generationgreen.org/2013/08/the-toxies-2013/feed/0Truth to Power on Chemical Safety: Updatehttp://generationgreen.org/2013/08/truth-to-power-on-chemical-safety-update/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=truth-to-power-on-chemical-safety-update
http://generationgreen.org/2013/08/truth-to-power-on-chemical-safety-update/#commentsThu, 01 Aug 2013 20:16:46 +0000Revathi Muralidharanhttp://generationgreen.org/?p=5663Yesterday was a big day in chemical safety law reform. A Senate Committee held the first hearing on the Chemical Safety Improvement Act (CSIA). For the first time in years, Congress is seriously discussing a proposal to reform our country’s outdated chemical safety rules.

The hearing was well attended by Senators and staffers from across the country. The Senators heard from CEH loud and clear: Eastern States Director Ansje Miller and Board Member Cecil Corbin-Mark were called to testify as experts on the bill’s effects on the health of children, pregnant women, low-income communities of color, and other vulnerable groups.

Committee members expressed support for amending the bill in ways expected to improve it dramatically. CEH will remain vigilant through this process to ensure that only a true chemical safety bill is adopted.

Public support will remain critical in this fight. Stay tuned for more– it’s going to be a wild ride, but CEH will be there to keep you informed and equipped to push for children’s health!

For those of you who missed it, here is a snapshot of CEH’s fight in the EPW hearing, as depicted through tweets!

]]>http://generationgreen.org/2013/08/truth-to-power-on-chemical-safety-update/feed/0The Secret Cost of Eating Cheaphttp://generationgreen.org/2013/07/the-secret-cost-of-eating-cheap/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-secret-cost-of-eating-cheap
http://generationgreen.org/2013/07/the-secret-cost-of-eating-cheap/#commentsTue, 16 Jul 2013 17:20:02 +0000Revathi Muralidharanhttp://generationgreen.org/?p=5637Being a college student, I probably know best how draining a trip to the grocery store can be on the wallet. Between trying to buy organic and avoiding junk food, the cost of just two weeks’ worth of groceries can reach triple digits. Sometimes it’s tempting to fall back to the “college student diet” and just buy 12-packs of ramen in the interest of saving money. But eating cheap won’t save me from harmful chemical contaminants in many common foods.

This is the lesson from a recent study by researchers at the University of California, summarized here, who found that many foods contain harmful chemical contaminants. The study, the first to the first to collectively look at exposures to multiple food contaminants in children, noted that the diets of preschoolers and school-age children contain a large number of these food contaminants, and that children are therefore at greater risk of exposure to levels of chemicals that have been linked to cancer and other health problems.

The study notes that contaminants in food can come from the ways that foods are cooked, processed, and packaged. For example, a cancer-causing chemical called acrylamide is produced in some foods cooked at high temperatures. Under California’s strong consumer protection law known as Prop 65, foods with high levels of acrylamide must carry a warning label. To avoid labels stating that their products contain a cancer-causing substance, many food companies are now looking for ways to reduce this harmful chemical, including using food enzymes.

So what can adults do to help both children and themselves minimize exposure to these contaminants and diseases?

Reduce your exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) by eating less meat, dairy, and fish, or to choose low-fat versions of these foods.

Reduce your exposure to mercury by eating catfish, salmon, and scallops instead of shark and swordfish.

Reduce your exposure to pesticides by substituting organic produce and milk for non-organic produce and milk.

Buying organic foods might be more expensive and changing the eating habits of your family may be tough, but investing a little extra in the health of you and your children can make the difference in spending a fortune on medical expenses years down the road. I don’t know about you, but I’d choose the rabbit food any day!

]]>http://generationgreen.org/2013/07/the-secret-cost-of-eating-cheap/feed/0Help Minnesota Mom Get Pesticide Spray Out of Her City’s Parks!http://generationgreen.org/2013/07/get-pesticide-spray-out-of-city-parks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=get-pesticide-spray-out-of-city-parks
http://generationgreen.org/2013/07/get-pesticide-spray-out-of-city-parks/#commentsMon, 01 Jul 2013 23:51:25 +0000Caroline Coxhttp://generationgreen.org/?p=5609In cities and towns across the country pesticide-free parks provide healthy and good-looking places for families, kids, and pets to play. There are almost 100 parks without pesticide spray in the Pacific Northwest and there are many more in other parts of the country.

How did you live your life during your early 20s? What were your focuses? Your significant other? School? Job? Figuring out ways to beat the beer chugging record at the local bar? How about health?

Like many young adults, health was hardly a priority for me. I almost routinely ate hotdogs for lunch, I stayed up until the morning hours, and the activity that came closest being an exercise involved clicking several hundred times a day on a computer mouse. Health wasn’t a concern to me, meh, that was an issue for later on.

All that changed when I was diagnosed with Stage I Testicular cancer at age 23. Initially I didn’t believe it –I thought, isn’t cancer for old people? Sure, young people can get cancer, but that’s rare, nope, can’t be me! A few hours after being told I “won” the cancer lottery, I came to realization and accepted the fact. Being a nerdy guy, I searched the internet universe for answers as to why I contracted cancer, but it’s very likely I will never know the cause.

As if that wasn’t enough, I won bonuses too! Next came non-alcoholic fatty liver, which are fat deposits in my liver slowly damaging the organ. Okay sure, I will exercise and eat properly to burn off the fat in my liver. A few weeks later during a routine check-up, my doctor said my blood pressure was high, and he needs to check again in 2 weeks. If it is still high he will put me on high blood pressure medicine, at 23 years old. I wasn’t even overweight!

With one health issue after another, I was angry at myself. How can I have so many health problems at that age? At this rate, I won’t live to 40!

Thus I began my health revolution. I learned as much as I can about health and reversed the fatty liver and high blood pressure. I became very conscious of my surroundings, enough to annoy my family about their routine use of hot water bottles (why are they called bottles?), which emit a weird smell. Better safe than sorry, I don’t know if the scent is hazardous or not, but they didn’t need hot water bottles, so they switched to electric blankets instead.

I thought I pretty much solved chemical exposures in my home, until I came to CEH. It turns out that almost all of the 80,000 chemicals in consumer goods have not been tested for long term safety. I was in complete shock, how can such incompetence and lack of common sense exist? Now I understand a factor behind diseases occurring at younger ages.

I may never know what caused my cancer, but it’s clear that our current policies on chemical exposure are like a Wild West. We need to at least make the cancer lottery harder to win. Say no to cancer lottery tickets in furniture, homes and our bodies, just to name a few.

• Natural gas is the bridge fuel that will help us stop climate change and fracking helps us get there faster.

• Fracking is so safe and clean that you can drink the fracking fluids.

Health advocates, environmentalists and community groups reply:

• Fracking is dangerous and must be stopped.

• The methane releases from fracking are speeding up climate change.

• Fracking makes your water catch on fire.

• Ever since fracking started in my community, my daughter’s nose keeps bleeding and I have been having trouble breathing.

With all of these conflicting statements, how do you know what’s true? Now you can take a master class from expert geologists, toxicologists, and physicians to give you all the information you need to understand this hot topic and make your own decisions. As a bonus, if you are a physician, you can earn Continuing Medical Education credits through the Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY).

The nonprofit Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE) has gathered the nation’s leading experts from institutions including Cornell and Stanford Universities to present the information about this issue in an easy to understand 7-part series that you can watch on YouTube. Divided into three modules, the series starts with an introductory course on geology and fracking and takes you all the way through to how it can affect human and animal health.

]]>http://generationgreen.org/2013/04/a-master-class-on-fracking-and-earn-cme-credits/feed/0Amy Brenneman, Actress and Mom, Takes on BPA Labelinghttp://generationgreen.org/2013/04/amy-brenneman-actress-and-mom-takes-on-bpa-labeling/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amy-brenneman-actress-and-mom-takes-on-bpa-labeling
http://generationgreen.org/2013/04/amy-brenneman-actress-and-mom-takes-on-bpa-labeling/#commentsTue, 09 Apr 2013 20:03:48 +0000Caroline Coxhttp://generationgreen.org/?p=5560Is BPA (bisphenol A) just one more acronym in the alphabet soup of chemical names that we all hear about from time to time?

Well, yes it is. But it’s also one of the scarier parts of the alphabet soup. For starters, it’s one of the most widely used chemicals in the world – two billion pounds used every year in the U.S. And it has enough health and safety problems that parents forced companies to stop using it to make baby bottles and sippy cups.

But BPA is still used to make lots of things that all of us are likely to use. CEH has recently found big on-line retailers selling plastic wine glasses, plastic tumblers, plastic pitchers, and plastic 5-gallon water jugs made from plastic that contains BPA. BPA is also used to make linings for food cans, cash register receipts, electronics, DVDs, and flame retardants.

California recently proposed to identify BPA as a chemical known to cause developmental problems. Developmental problems are health problems in kids that result from exposure before birth – exposure moms receive during pregnancy. If it’s listed, products that can expose consumers to BPA would have to carry warning labels. But the state proposal doesn’t go far enough – scientists say that tiny amounts of BPA can harm us, so the state should lower the proposed threshold that would trigger labeling.

Amazingly, the chemical industry sued California for proposing to list BPA, claiming that “there is no scientific reason” supporting the state’s proposal. In contrast, the letter from the 22 esteemed physicians and scientists notes that “There is an enormous amount of research about developmental effects of BPA,” and cites ten recent animal studies linking low levels of BPA exposure to harm to the developing brain, mammary gland, ovaries, pituitary gland and other health concerns, as well as seven human studies linking BPA in the urine or blood of pregnant women to adverse maternal and/or child health outcomes.

Oakland, CA – According to a recent study, players on both Los Angeles Major League Baseball teams, the Dodgers and the Angels may contain high levels of toxic flame retardant chemicals usually found in furniture, including most couches in American homes.

“We fear for the health and safety of the LA ball club players, who spent the entire month of October sitting on their couches watching the San Francisco Giants, the Oakland Athletics, and other teams in the playoffs,” said Matt Nevins, Research Assistant at CEH. “As fans of the game, we want to nurture rivalries of fairness – not ones in which our competitors have reduced baseball IQ due to increased exposure to harmful chemicals.”

When approached for comment, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said, “This is a problem that, fortunately, we have the monetary resources to buy ourselves out of. We intend to import high-end upholstery and make Dodger couches stuffed with dollar bills, which as we know contain no chemicals other than some green ink I think.”

A 1975 California flammability standard called Technical Bulletin 117 (TB 117) has prompted decades of widespread use of flame retardant chemicals. But a recent analysis by the Office of the Commissioner has found that the state’s focus on chemical flame retardants does not protect people from fires and that non-chemical methods are better suited to achieve fire safety benefits.

“It presents an unfair playing field issue,” said Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, upon hearing news of the study. “Teams without the resources to compete at the highest level are left to wallow on their killer couches throughout the month of October. We urge the State of California to adopt the updated TB117-2013 standard, resulting in better fire safety without the use of harmful chemical flame retardants.”

The Houston Astros, who lost 107 games last year and apparently had players spending much of their time on couches during and after the season had no comment on the recent findings.

CEH Executive Director Michael Green was recently a guest on the radio talk show “On the Green Front” hosted by eco-pioneer Betsy Rosenberg. In the interview, Michael discusses the “toxic shell game”–in which the chemical industry conducts unplanned science experiments on consumers by replacing toxic chemicals in consumer products with other untested chemicals that have similar or worse health effects. One example of the “toxic shell game” is displayed in a recent CEH study. CEH’s study found alarmingly high levels of toxic flame retardant chemicals in children’s nap mats. Tris, the flame retardant chemical used in nap mats was banned from children’s pajamas in the 1970s, but is now showing up in children’s nap mats and household furniture. Tris has been linked to a wide array of health problems including cancer, obesity, reduced fertility, hormone disruption, and allergies. Government studies and fire experts have found that flame retardants are ineffective as they are used in furniture and products like nap mats. Michael discusses the steps CEH is taking to protect families from harmful chemicals like Tris and end the “toxic shell game” for good. Michael also informs consumers about easy steps they can take such to avoid chemical exposures and how they can become involved in supporting the end of this harmful experiment. Listen to the complete interview here.

Tony Stefani is an American hero. Not just because of his 28 years of service as a captain with the San Francisco Fire Department. Not just because he’s a cancer survivor who started a non-profit to prevent cancer among firefighters. All of that would make him hero enough, but not enough for Tony.

For years Tony has been a tireless advocate for better fire safety standards without harmful flame-retardant chemicals. His battle against these risky chemicals began after he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that his doctor said was usually only seen in chemical industry workers. Then he learned that two other firefighters from his station developed a more common version of the same cancer.

We are all exposed to risky flame-retardant chemicals every day. Most of the furniture sold in the U.S. is doused with these toxic chemicals — in some cases as much as two pounds of flame retardants are used in a single couch. In our recent work, CEH found flame retardants in baby products and nap mats used in daycares nationwide. Some flame retardants are known to causecancer, and others can interfere with hormones, reproductive systems, thyroid and metabolic function, and neurological development in infants and children, among other health hazards.

But firefighters face a double burden. In addition to these everyday exposures, firefighters can be dosed with massive amounts of these chemicals, and the cancer-causing dioxins and furans that are produced when the chemicals burn, when they work in and around burning buildings. A recent study found that the levels of a common flame retardant in the blood of 12 firefighters studied was 2-3 times higher than the levels found in the general population. One firefighter in the study had 11 times more of this flame retardant in his blood than average. Women firefighters face particular risks: A recent survey found that 10 of 117 women firefighters in San Francisco between ages 40 and 50 had developed breast cancer, nearly six times higher than the rate for women of that age in the general population.

When Tony Stefani connected his workplace exposures with his cancer diagnosis, he decided to take action. He founded the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation, an all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention and detection of cancer in both active and retired firefighters of the San Francisco Fire Department. The group’s annual screenings have caught six cancer cases so far.

He also speaks out regularly at legislative hearings to insure that California lawmakers know that we need a new state standard for furniture flammability, one that offers better fire safety and doesn’t require companies to use harmful chemicals. Now, California regulators are listening. The state has finally proposed an update to a 38-year-old standard, an outdated approach that has resulted in widespread use of flame-retardant chemicals in furniture nationwide. The updated standard takes a modern, scientific approach to fire safety, without harmful chemicals.

What’s Tony’s response? He’s started a petition calling for support of this new, safer standard. He also plans to be in Sacramento on March 26 to speak at a public hearing on the issue and deliver the signatures on the day the public comment period closes.

Firefighters know the risks they face every time they respond to a call. Given their daily life-saving service to our communities, shouldn’t we all take one minute to help prevent avoidable illnesses to firefighters — especially when this simple action will also help protect our children’s and families’ health? Please take a minute today to sign Tony’s petition in support of safer fire safety.